40 UK festivals have now been cancelled this summer – with over 170 disappearing in five years

nme.com:

here.The report from AIF also comes after NME looked into why so many UK festivals have been cancelled or postponed in recent years, and spoke to industry experts to shed light on the rapid decline.It highlighted how Herefordshire’s Nozstock Hidden Valley announced that 2024 would be their final incarnation after 26 years due to “soaring costs” and financial risk”, and Shepton Mallet skating and music festival NASS announced that they wouldn’t be putting on an event this summer either as it was “just not economically feasible to continue”.Others mentioned were the cancelled Dumfries’ Doonhame Festival, Bluedot – which announced a year off for the land to “desperately” recover after being struck by heavy rain and cancellations last summer – Nottingham’s Splendour, which was canned this year due to planning delays from a financially-struggling city council, and Barn On The Farm shared that it would be taking a fallow year due to financial constraints.Discussing the issues at hand, co-manager for the latter, Oscar Matthews, told NME: “From our perspective, the festival in 2023 itself was brilliant – it was a really successful year – but we were hit majorly on a financial level by a mix of increased production costs and a very big reduction in ticket sales,” he said. “That hit us from both angles and meant we suffered quite substantial losses, despite the actual running of the festival going so well.”It was also argued that with the continued loss of grassroots music venues throughout the UK, smaller music festivals are needed to produce the headliners of major events in the future.“It’s inevitable and it’s already started, but when you start to lose smaller festivals, events, gig spaces and venues, the opportunities.